


A Spot of Bother

by makiyakinabe



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 21:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makiyakinabe/pseuds/makiyakinabe
Summary: In which Sophie opens shop and finds herself in for a surprise.





	A Spot of Bother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psiten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/gifts).



> Many thanks to Gammarad for the characterization beta and proofread!

The stir raised in Market Chipping when Sophie opened the flower shop the next day came as a surprise to her.

Sophie thought nothing of it at first when people went up to her to curiously inquire where Aunt Jenkins had gone. "I'm afraid she's retired," she said to them all, and tried not not to think of how strange it was to talk about her former cursed self in the third person. She'd gotten rather used to being that wizened old woman. "I'm her niece," she added, a touch defensive, as the look in their eyes became speculative, and before she knew it she found herself falling back on the already spun story of the great-aunt with more nieces than she could keep track of.

This turned out to be a mistake. The customers who came to Jenkins' were people Sophie had known all her life, and though not all of them recognized her after her absence of several months, quite a few of them did. They inquired as to why Aunt Jenkins had never shown her face around town, not even at the funeral of the first Mrs. Hatter. How a man as respectable as Ansel Hatter, may he rest in peace, had not spoken of her even once while he'd still been drawing breath. And—this inquiry being the most recurrent of them all—exactly how was she related to Mr. H. Jenkins?

Every time someone posed to her an inquiry that had nothing at all to do with flowers, Sophie would raise her head slightly higher in determined unconcern and her smile would become a bit more stiff. Soon it seemed to be all that her customers wanted to talk about. People mysteriously flocked to the shop in droves to see Sophie now that the spell was off. They stared in barely disguised curiosity at the head of red gold she determinedly held high in the air and her face, which was stuck in an awkward smile from having to see to them all by herself.

Michael had gone off early in the morning, a bundle of crocuses tucked against an arm, and promised that he'd come around with Martha after lunch. Sophie had seen him off with a smile—she'd rather thought they could all use the respite, now that the troubles with the Witch of the Waste and Miss Angorian had blown over—but oh, how she regretted it now!

By the time Howl arrived the story Sophie'd spun had somehow gotten so crammed with secrecy and broken hearts (and even at one point, a hint of a quarrel turned deadly), that even she was having difficulty remembering the finer details.

The moment of Howl's arrival could not be easier to pinpoint. It seemed that every pair of eyes within the shop were darting from Sophie at the same time to focus someplace else, and this was followed soon after by raised eyebrows and sparkles of excitement in many an eye. The inquisitive ladies that had cornered her by a wall dispersed at once. They moved in droves towards Howl, who was cautiously picking his way through the flower-filled buckets in his black suit, now as good as new. Sophie firmly told the flare of peevishness that arose within her all of a sudden to settle down.

Howl, to his credit, merely aimed cordial smiles at the ladies before proceeding to slither away from them all. "Fancy that," he said, as he walked over to Sophie. "We were embroiled in mortal peril only yesterday and here you are, opening shop as if nothing had ever happened!"

Sophie doubted she imagined the flashes of triumph that popped up on several of the faces around them, or the way everyone seemed to draw closer to them, like a pack of hunting wolves who had locked in on their prey of choice and were getting ready to leap into attack. But none of it seemed to matter. Howl was smiling at her again, and like yesterday, she was smiling back despite herself and rather thought that she wouldn't mind it if they carried on like so for hours.

"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't," Sophie told him, matter of fact. "Besides—it's no way to run a business, stopping for anything."

Howl shook his head, chuckling, but he was smiling still and there was a fondness in his eyes that made Sophie’s face grow warm. But the ladies around him closed in before he could even so much as open his mouth.

”If you please, sir, did I hear you correctly? _Mortal peril_ , you say?”

”What is your relation to Sophie Hatter, Mr. Jenkins?”

”Oh, Mr. Jenkins, I don't mean to pry but I simply must know: are you really Aunt Jenkins' childhood friend's daughter's adopted son who she took in due to a promise made on his deathbed that she'd mend his scoundrel ways?"

Howl gaped at that particular inquiry. "Well, er." He darted a searching glance at Sophie, who was swiftly beginning to develop a stiff neck from how high she'd been holding her head for all this time. Then his face became soulful and penitent all of a sudden. "Why, yes, that's right," he said, nodding gravely. "I don't know where I'd be right now, if it weren't for good old Aunt Jenkins. You could even say that I owe my life to her." He went on in this vein for quite some time, adding sentimental flourishes to Sophie's story that had the ladies reaching into their handbags for their handkerchief, and somehow made everyone standing inside the shop pay for a dozen flowers apiece by the end of it all.

"This isn't quite the hair-raising life I had in mind," he said to Sophie later, as they waved goodbye to a cluster of ladies who looked rather bemused to find themselves now owner to the bundles of rhododendrons, hyacinths, or marigolds tucked under their arms. Sophie snorted, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

When Michael burst into the shop around noon with Martha on his arm, shouting, "Howl! What's this I've been hearing about you being a former mercenary for hire who was saved from iniquity by a secret love of _flowers_ , of all things?", Howl and Sophie took one look at each other and doubled over in laughter.


End file.
